Australian scientists have found a new way to create diamonds and it could have wider implications

• Australian scientists are part of a team that has developed a different way to make diamonds.
• The team, which includes scientists from the Australian National University and RMIT, have found a way to make the type of diamonds used for engagement rings and another type of diamond called Lonsdaleite using pressure rather than high temperatures.
• Lead investigator Jodie Bradby told Business Insider Australia what it will mean for diamond production.
• Visit the Business Insider Australia home page for more stories.

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Australian scientists were part of an international team that discovered a new way of making diamonds.

The team, including scientists from the Australian National University and RMIT, were able to produce diamonds in a laboratory at room temperature using high pressure, rather than through high temperatures or drilling for natural diamonds.

They were able to create two types of diamonds: the king used on engagement rings and the type called Lonsdaleite. Named after crystallographer Dame Kathleen Lonsdale, who was the first woman elected to the British scientific organization, the Royal Society, Lonsdaleite is considered to be much harder than standard diamonds.

ANU professor Jodie Bradby, one of the lead researchers, explained that if you rearrange the crystal structure of carbon in a certain way, you get the graphite that we use in pencils.

“If you rearrange it in a different way, you can get the diamond, which is really hard,” he told Business Insider Australia. “And if we fix it again in a different way, we can get a diamond shape that is even harder than normal diamond and which is called Lonsdaleite.

“And it is one of the most difficult materials that can be posited. It should be about 50% harder than normal diamonds. “

Bradby added that Lonsdaleite has applications wherever diamond is used as a material, such as on drill bits for mining machinery or any type of hard blade.

Scientists have found that both regular diamonds and Lonsdaleite can be produced at room temperature using extremely high pressure, as if they had 640 African elephants on the toe of a dance shoe.

“We found a different path to making diamonds out of graphite, or any kind of black carbon type material,” said Bradby. “We know that diamonds are formed deep in the earth, where it is very hot and there is a lot of pressure, and some diamonds are millions and millions of years old.

“What we have been able to do is make them in the laboratory with a method that is based solely on pressure. So we eliminated temperature and time from the equation. ”

The discovery has important implications for diamond production, because traditional processes that require high temperatures are more difficult and expensive.

“If you only do this at room temperature, it’s a lot easier,” Bradby said.

Although the team has been able to make the type of diamonds used in jewelry, their main focus is the production of diamonds for industrial processes.

“Hopefully if that means we can make a diamond that is harder than diamond, it could mean that miners wouldn’t have to change a drill bit as often,” Bradby said. “And it would only be economically easier to use this type of diamond tip than the previous normal type of diamonds because diamonds are often incorporated into these tools.”

Making diamonds in a laboratory

The notion of engagement diamond rings was popularized by mining giant De Beers, which launched a hugely successful advertising campaign in the 1940s with the slogan “a diamond is forever”.

More recently, there have been changing attitudes among millennials when it comes to diamonds, as there is a growing awareness of bloody diamonds – diamonds mined and sold to finance conflict – and the small but growing popularity of synthetic diamonds.

Bradby pointed out that synthetic diamonds are identical to natural diamonds.

“There is no difference chemically, structurally, mechanically,” he said, adding that synthetic diamonds can be produced through high pressure and high temperature processes or through chemical processes, which can be quite slow.

The problem with synthetic diamonds, says Bradby, is that they are time-consuming and relatively expensive. However, he said that chemical processes can grow gem-quality diamonds that can compete with the natural diamond market, and that it will be interesting to see how it turns out in the future, particularly around what people value in a diamond.

“[If it’s] Is it really important to them that it has formed deep within the earth over billions of years or are they happy that it is grown in the laboratory? ” she said.

With this new process developed by scientists there may be room for creating more diamonds for jewelry purposes.

“If we could get the amount of pressure we need to form it, there would be a chance that we could create traditionally sparkling looking diamonds. But I think it’s a way down the track, ”Bradby added.

The research team’s plan now is to create more diamonds by lowering the pressure required to form them.

“We have a few tricks up our sleeve to see if we can do it,” Bradby said. “If we can reduce the pressure to a reasonable level, because at the moment something like 300 tons are needed for a small area to make this diamond: if we can reduce it much lower, you can start entering the area where it is possible. manufacture large quantities.

“And that’s the dream.”

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